


timshel (you are not alone in this)

by bacondoughnut



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Assassination, Betrayal, Brotherly Love, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Protective Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Secrets, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 04:07:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18275459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacondoughnut/pseuds/bacondoughnut
Summary: It's just a regular day working for the Commission for Number Five. That is, until he receives an order: "Terminate Klaus Hargreeves."Number Five makes a different decision.





	timshel (you are not alone in this)

_Cold is the water. It freezes your already cold mind, already cold cold mind._

Number Five splashed the water onto his face, holding his hands there over his eyes for a moment. Listening to the running of the faucet and the gentle humming of the hotel AC. Then he scrubbed his hands down his face and turned to leave the bathroom, pointedly avoiding looking into the mirror.

It was days like this that he sort of missed the Apocalypse.

Back when he was stuck there, just him and Dolores, things had been much simpler. Well, not that fending for his life against the elements and starvation or any of that had exactly been a fucking walk in the park. But it was simpler. Water, food, shelter, rest. He did everything on his own schedule, and made all of his own decisions. And, if his survival through all those years said anything about it, he was damned good at it too.

Now the Commission made his decisions. (Or, liked to think they did, at any rate.)

He went where they sent him, and he shot who they aimed him at. Figuratively speaking, sometimes. Sometimes it wasn't a gun.

It was days like these that he practiced hope. Practiced like Vanya used to practice her violin when she first started. With focus, and dedication, and a surefire belief that one day he would get the hang of it, despite it sounding like screaming cats. He doesn't quite progress as quickly as he remembered Vanya did. But then, it was harder, without a leaflet of music to follow along.

Funnily enough, he slept better in that wasteland. There was little noise in a dead world, and you got used to sleeping on concrete or dirt after a little while. And when the world's already ended, and there's actually no functioning alarm clocks in sight, you can sleep in as late as you want.

Five doesn't get a lot of sleep these days. He could, sure. But time spent sleeping is time that could be spent perfecting his equations. And, while the Handler insisted that time is surely the one thing he had in abundance now, it was time he wasn't willing to waste. Once he perfected the equation, he could go back. Go back to his family, stop the Apocalypse. Make things right.

Not that working for the Commission was really so bad.

He didn't like what he did. Five was an efficient killer, sure. But it wasn't what he would call his cup of tea. (Well, nothing was his cup of tea. He preferred coffee.) He remembered a conversation he had with the Handler after his first mission. He'd commented on her ever-present smile when she was at work; most people weren't so happy at work.

"Everyone likes what they're good at, Five," she'd told him.

Not me, he thought. Still, he followed orders. Biding his ostensibly abundant time.

He was only a few steps out of the hotel bathroom when he heard the familiar  _whoosh_ that meant another tube had arrived. A message from the Commission. It was just a destination this time.  _"Vietnam, 1968. Await further instruction."_

Five sighed. He wondered if the Commission was this vague all the time for security--why give the details out to everyone, that's just more people who could ruin it--or because they thought the mystery made them look cool. It didn't. He rolled his eyes, but picked up the Briefcase all the same.

_And death is at your doorstep._

The Vietnam War. Number Five had to admit--only to himself, he'd never live it down if the Handler heard him saying it, and he could already picture her stupid smug face--he was intrigued.

Over his time working for the Commission, Five had become sort of a history buff. He imagined they all were, to a degree. But in his work keeping timelines "the way they were meant to be," he so rarely got to actually go to whatever major historical event he was protecting. The timelines worked in such a way that, more often, they sent him a few days or months or even years before the event. It was almost always little details he had to change, little people he had to kill. (God, but he hated that his brain thought like that now. Little people. Unimportant people.)

Sure, every now and then there was a more important figure. Occasionally they sent him to the event, instead before it. But most of the time, work as a time travelling assassin was far more boring than a job with that title had any right to be.

So, in a morbid sort of way, Number Five was kind of excited. The Vietnam War.

Then he heard the sound effect of another tube. The further instruction he was meant to wait for.

His good moods never lasted too long these days, but this had to be a record breaking drop. At first, Five assumed he must've read the message wrong; which is really saying something, because he couldn't remember the last time he'd assumed the mistake was on him. But he reread the message, and then reread it again for good measure. It really did say what he thought it did.

_"Terminate Klaus Hargreeves."_

This had to be a joke. Klaus wasn't even  _in_ Vietnam, especially not in 1968....Was he? But no, that was ridiculous. This had to be a joke. A joke or a test. It was possible the Hander had grown suspicious of Five's level of commitment towards the Commission. It's not like it would be misplaced suspicion.

Still, if it was a test, it was still unbelievable. Which, growing up in the house he did, with the siblings he did. Living the life he lived, and working the job he worked. Unbelievable was not a word Number Five tended to throw around. This was kind of a first.

But if it was a test, the Commission would have had to have somehow brought Klaus back in time to have make him Five's mission now. Which was something the Commission just didn't do. At least in their mind, they fixed timelines, they didn't tamper with them. And they were all about getting rid of people to do it, not sending more people back in time.

He supposed it was possible that Klaus ended up in 1968 some other way. And whether or not the Commission sent him back, it was possible giving Five the case was still a test. If Klaus was time travelling, messing with timelines, then they might've figured what the hell. Give the case to his brother, test his loyalty. It was a moronic move, even for them.

Number Five wasn't going to kill Klaus. He knew this for a fact.

And not because he'd seen where Klaus died, when he time travelled to the Apocalypse. No, his certainty wasn't placed in the timeline or anything like that. He wouldn't kill Klaus because it was  _Klaus_. And what other reason could he need?

Still, if Klaus was messing with timelines....Well, Five had to do something. Find another way to get Klaus out of the Vietnam War. Or else the Commission would simply send another hitman, when they found out Five couldn't do it.

With that in mind, he set out to find his brother. Keep an eye on him until he had enough information to work out a plan.

It was a difficult task.

Not finding him. Finding him was pretty easy, actually. He was somehow, impossibly, unbelievably, fighting the war. Klaus was a soldier. What the fuck? But no, finding him wasn't the hard part. It was not immediately running up to him so that he might tell him everything. Five had never been much of a hugger, but seeing his brother for the first time in  _decades_ , when the last time he'd seen him had been lying dead under a pile of rubble? It was not immediately pulling him into a damn hug that was the difficult task.

Somehow, impossibly, unbelievably, Five managed it.

He managed it for a whole week. In that time, he followed Klaus. Sometimes he kept more distance, sometimes he didn't worry so much. After all, it wasn't like his own brother would even recognize him. They'd only been thirteen the last time they interacted, after all.

Over the course of a week he figured everything out. Well, everything pertinent.

Klaus, somehow, had a Briefcase. Five couldn't figure out where or how he'd gotten it, but the fact of the matter was that he had one, and he'd used the damn thing to travel to the Vietnam War of all places. Considering Klaus definitely wasn't working for the Commission, it was more than likely he didn't know how to work it, and had travelled here on accident. Exactly the kind of bullshit thing that would happen to someone in their family.

If Five had to guess, and he couldn't exactly ask so he did, he'd guess that Klaus either elected to stay in Vietnam because he couldn't work the Briefcase. He may not have wanted to risk getting zapped somewhere worse if he time travelled again--although, where worse than the frontlines of a war, Five couldn't figure out. Well, that was probably his initial reason for staying, anyway. But, not at least, there was something more.

The other fact Five learned in a week? Klaus was in love.

How or why that happened, he couldn't even begin to understand. But another soldier, Five learned his name was Dave Katz, had become important enough to Klaus, that he was willingly staying in this... _hell_. 

Klaus was fighting in the frontlines of a war, getting shot at and yelled at and frequently almost dying just about every day. But somehow, Five had never seen Klaus smile so much. Well, Klaus smiled a lot, or he did when Five knew him. But it so rarely reached his eyes. When he was with this Dave person, his smile was real. His laugh was genuine. And what's more, he made Dave laugh to. The assholes were in love.

_And it will steal your innocence, but it will not steal your substance._

And, in learning those facts, Number Five learned what it was that he had to do.

It was a relatively simple leap in logic, really. No Dave meant no love meant no reason to stay in Vietnam, meant Klaus wasn't messing up the timelines and Klaus wasn't dead. There was a chance, sure, that it was Dave's timeline that Klaus was screwing with of course. That by killing Dave, Five would mess with the timeline even more than Klaus was. But that was a chance he was willing to take, if it meant saving his brother's life. And really, if the Commission didn't like it, they should be less vague about what his missions were. This was on them.

He wished he could say it was a difficult task.

In truth, it felt like any other kill. Dave Katz was a little person, an unimportant person. When Five pulled the trigger, he could very well have been firing at anyone in history. That mob boss, the kindergarten school teacher, the accountant, or the "doctor without borders." It could have been any of his previous marks, and that didn't matter, because it wasn't Klaus Hargreeves.

Five pulled the trigger with a steady hand.

There was a lot of gunfire and a lot of chaos. Naturally, Klaus didn't notice right away. Five stayed until he did. He wasn't sure why, it just felt wrong to leave. Yes, Klaus didn't and hopefully wouldn't ever know that Five was there. But it felt wrong to leave him.

_And you are not alone in this_.

Admittedly, he jumped when there was a sudden movement next to him. Just out of the corner of his eye he saw her, the Handler. Sitting next to him, overlooking the battlefields.

"I just love war, don't you?" she asked, her voice had a certain sweetness to it that she herself did not possess.

Five's hands clenched into fists and, at that particular moment, he didn't really care if she noticed or not. Still, anything that kept him from looking out onto that battlefield. He turned to look at her, torn between yelling and acceptance. There was nothing to be done about it now, after all. Well, time travel...But he would make the same decision over again. He would. So he settled for acceptance. Puffed out a sigh and said, "This was a test."

"Oh no, Five, nothing so underhanded as that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, a test would imply we don't know everything about each of our operatives," she said, matter of fact. He wondered what it would take to take that smugness out of her tone, and he resented the implications that she knew anything at all about him. She only knew what he let her know. "No, it wasn't a test. It was...just, another mission."

He really did hate how, after all this time, she still managed to surprise him. She was being awfully relaxed about all this. Well of course she was, that was her omnipresent demeanor. But still, he had expected at least a little bit of anger, or disappointment, or something if and when she found out he hadn't followed orders. He gestured towards the battlefield below them and said, "I didn't kill my brother. I won't  _let_ you kill my brother."

"Of course you didn't," the Handler said, and she laughed. She actually laughed. Until she looked at him, and his confusion must've shown on his face because she took pity on him and said, "We knew you wouldn't."

Which, really only gave him more questions.

Questions he was too proud to ask. He narrowed his eyes and said, "You wanted me to kill Dave Katz."

"And it's damn lucky we were right, too. Klaus has important things to be doing in 2019, him being dead would really put a damper on that."

But why not just have him shoot Dave Katz to begin with? This whole thing had been one big waste of time. And sure, she liked to boast that time was what they had in abundance, but that didn't mean they couldn't waste it. If not a test, it must have been some kind of game to her. Number Five was getting real sick of trying to figure out what was going on in her head.

It was twice as infuriating in the moments she seemed to understand perfectly what was going on in his head. She gave him a cursory glance and said, "Well, I thought you might be getting bored. Being told just what to do all the time. Like I said, I know my operatives. I thought I'd give you a problem to solve. Y'know, just to keep things interesting. And when I saw your brother had popped up in Vietnam, we just had to send him back to his own time, and I thought: Who better than our own Number Five?"

Only she would give him the problem of finding a way not to kill his own brother as a fun little puzzle to solve. He was tempted to ask what the hell was wrong with her, but he settled for saying, "Most people just do sudoku."

She put a hand on his shoulder. It took a lot of restraint not to shrug it off. He was trying not to burn his bridges just yet. "We're not most people, Five."

He wasn't sure what was more enraging; the way she spoke as if she knew anything at all about what kind of person he was, or the fact that she said 'we,' as if they had absolutely anything in common. Lacking a decision, he decided just to be pissed about both.

_You are not alone in this._

He lost track of just how many missions he was sent on after that, but somewhere around the fifteen mark he got the equations right. Or at least, thought he did.

The thirteen year old body wasn't what he would call ideal, but he was where he wanted to be. Back at the house, with all--or almost all, but he didn't have to time to feel bad about Ben right now--of his siblings standing in front of him. He wasn't sure of the exact date, but their faces looked the same age as the faces on the corpses in the rubble of the Academy, so Five figured the Apocalypse wasn't far off.

Even if the Commission didn't likely already have a mark on his head, time, it seemed, was no longer something that Five had in abundance.

Grieving Ben wasn't the only thing he didn't have time for. There wasn't going to be the heartwarming family reunion that he'd been dreaming of for decades (not that he'd admit as much out loud.) There definitely wasn't time for the petty longwinded explanations that his family seemed so desperate that he give. And the thought didn't even occur to him to try to find out if this Klaus was grieving the love of his life yet, or if that would happen later. All of that could wait, there was shit to get done, they would have to understand that.

What there was time for, however? A sandwich. Peanut butter and marshmallow. And some coffee, though that proved more difficult.

It was nice, in a way, to visit Griddy's. Maybe the place had gone to shit, or maybe it was Five who had gone to shit. Either way, it was nice until it wasn't. He'd escaped from the incessant questioning of his siblings, which meant he could actually think. Only he couldn't actually think, because everywhere he looked was a memory.

He looked at the doorway and saw the time Klaus smacked his head on the top of the doorway, after talking Luther into giving him a piggyback ride there. He looked at the wall and saw the time Ben threw up on it, and the table in the corner was the time Vanya taught him how to fold a paper airplane.

And the memories weren't so bad. It wasn't the memories that ruined it. Nor was it the gunmen, that came after. No, what made Five regret coming to Griddy's was thinking about all of the memories he missed out on. Wondering how long everyone kept going there after he got stuck in the future, and what laughs they had without him. It shouldn't hurt, not when he had other things to be worrying about, but he couldn't help it.

And he still had an Apocalypse to stop. All on his own.

Yes, on his own. Because his family was still as dysfunctional, if not more so, as ever. He couldn't count on any of them to get it done. He told Vanya, and she tried to get him a therapist. He told Klaus and...well, Klaus actually committed more than Five expected. Smashing that snowglobe on his own head was in ingenious move. But that lead them nowhere, and left Five on his own. Not knowing how to stop the end of the world he loved.

Alone or no, he would do it. He would do it for the same reason he survived all those years in a wasteland. For the same reason he killed all those innocent people for the Commission. The same reason he killed Dave Katz.

He would do it for his family.

_As brothers we will stand, and we'll hold your hand._

It wasn't until much later that Five sat down to talk with Klaus. Admittedly, too much later.

Only he hadn't had the time to worry about Klaus's problems which, in the long run, seemed minimal. He could've been more supportive when he found out Klaus was just back from 1968, but there were bigger things on his mind. He still didn't know how to stop the Apocalypse, or who he had to kill to do it. They could all have a big therapy session after the world was safe, but Five was more focused on the Briefcase that Klaus stole, which could be instrumental in saving everyone, than holding his hand over a dead boyfriend. It didn't even click in his mind that Klaus had just lost Dave until after Klaus stormed off.

So yes, it wasn't until much later.

After the house went down, and they all agreed to rendezvous at the bowling alley. Naturally Five was the first one there, and somehow Klaus was the second. In that time alone sitting by the lanes, Five decided it was time he talked to him. The Apocalypse was only growing closer, after all, and if he did fail at saving them he wasn't about to fail at being a brother, too.

"Talk to me about Dave Katz."

Not his most tactful opener, but whatever. Tact was never his specialty.

Klaus jumped a little, brought out of wherever his mind was when he was sitting there with one leg bouncing, drumming his fingers on his lips. "You know about him?"

Five had forgotten, Klaus hadn't mentioned Dave yet. Not to him, at any rate. But while he wanted to give Klaus the chance to talk, he also wasn't about to tell him the whole story. It was selfish, he knew, but Klaus would never forgive him. And he wasn't ready to lose the family he'd just gotten back. Besides, they had to work as a team to stop the Apocalypse, and a team functioned best when none of the members were pissed at the other members for shooting the love of their life. A house divided against itself and all that. So he gestured to the tags around Klaus's neck and said, "I can read, you know."

"And here I thought you were illegitimate."

"Illiterate," Five corrected, on impulse. Then, before Klaus could reply, "It's just. I figured he must've been important to you."

"He is," Klaus said, and Five didn't miss the use of the present tense. Klaus picked up the dog tags and looked down at them, like he must've done a thousand times over since he got back to 2019. Then, with an emotion Five couldn't quite understand, he repeated, "Yeah, he is."

Quiet was the last adjective Five thought he'd be using to describe Klaus, but Klaus was quiet then. For the briefest of moments, Five thought that was the only conversation they were going to have on the subject. Then Klaus smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile he wore when he was in Vietnam, no this one was pained, melancholic. Like he was torn, because the thought of Dave made him want to laugh, but the thought of Dave never laughing again made him want to cry. Five knew the look; he was no stranger to grief, after all.

When Klaus spoke, Five thought it was more to himself than to Five. His gaze was on the dog tags the whole time, but he must have been seeing something else. He said, "And I was important to him. Would you believe it? First time I ever knew what that felt like."

Five found himself regretting all the time he missed after jumping forward again, but for an entirely different reason. What must have happened while he was away, for Klaus to feel like he'd only ever been important to one person? One person who Number Five shot and killed. He didn't want to know the answer for that reason, but he thought Klaus might like to tell it, so he asked, "What'd you like about him?"

"What's not to like?" Klaus asked, looking up at Five finally. It almost hurt, to see the emotion in his eyes. "He was brave, and beautiful. And he snored like you wouldn't believe, but you should've heard him laugh. He was...He was beautiful."

And forget Klaus not forgiving Five. He would never forgive  _himself_ if he found out that it was his presence in Vietnam that got Dave killed. He would be devastated, even more so than he already was. So Five had to swallow all of the apologies that threatened to spill over, because that guilt was his and his alone, and he wasn't about to let Klaus carry any of it.

_And I will tell the night. Whisper, "Lose your sight."_

So lacking anything else to say, like the fool he likes he pretend he's not, Five states the obvious. As matter of fact about it as if he's suggesting what they have for dinner. He says, "You really loved him."

And Klaus's voice cracks and tears threaten to spill over when he nods and says, "So much."

Not for the first time, Number Five is glad that he's been practicing; hope is  _hard_.

In the end, Five does get that hug he's been aching to give. He's not sure, in that moment, what makes him do it. But he reaches out and pulls his brother into a hug, and he thinks he's going to regret it but he doesn't for a second, because Klaus clings to him like he's a four year old who just skinned his knee and Number Five is his god damn teddy bear.

And they cling to each other up until Klaus chuckles and says, "Y'know, for a pre-teen, you're such a good listener."

Which is when Five pulls away in favor of smacking him in the shoulder. Klaus grins and tries to give him a noogie, like the mature adult he is, and Five zaps himself a seat over so he's just out of Klaus's reach. Shaking his head, he mutters, "I should've stayed in the Apocalypse."

But not for a second does he mean it.

Diego shows up a moment later, and then Allison, and then Luther. Then it's back to end of the world talk, trying to figure out how to stop the whole world from going up in flames, but as a team this time around. Frankly, they suck at it. Some teams are a well-oiled machine. The Hargreeves? They're more like a rusted up machine that you have to smack a few times before it starts running, and even then, it doesn't work the best.

Still, Five loves this rusty machine. He knows it the same way he knows he'll do everything for them. Already has done anything for them.

_But I can't move mountains for you_.

**Author's Note:**

> lol so I saw that post rolling around about what if the commission had dave killed cuz klaus was fucking w/ the timelines, and there's probs a ton of fics about it already, but now mine's in the mix. it was hard, cuz number five is...well, I love the bastard but I don't think I have as good of a grasp on him as other characters. I tried.  
> also: the song the lyrics interwoven in and the title belongs to is called "timshel" it's by mumford & sons and it's dope give it a listen if u haven't heard it
> 
> anyways, thanks for reading!! <3


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